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Apple's New iPhone Could Be Tall, Thin And Beautiful

Apple’s plans to release a new product in September, presumably the iPhone 5, has blogs anticipating the look and feel of the new device and boiling over with excitement on how Apple may leverage new technologies to enhance the user experience.

For starters, Apple may use a new liquid crystal display technology and change the physical size of the phone. With the iPhone 4S, the display had two layers of glass, one for the touch-screen’s film layer and another protective glass panel to resist scratches. The display screen for the iPhone 5 could reduce a layer of glass if the metallic layer for the touch screen is applied to the protective glass, and the result would be a thinner screen.

Analysts at ETrade Supply have taken apart the iPhone 5’s casing in a breakdown analysis that gives lots of technical detail on how the new phone could stack up against the iPhone 4S.

As mentioned, the iPhone 5 is bigger than previous versions, perhaps more competitive with the larger Samsung Gallaxy products. The iPhone 5 is about 4.0 inches diagonally compared with 3.5 inches for the iPhone 4S, according to ETrade Supply. Speculation persists that Apple may release a different sized iPad, that is one that is smaller than the new iPad.

Next, the new phone’s display is a lot bigger than the iPhone 4S, in part because its footprint is larger, but also because the screen takes up proportionately more of the face of the phone. The menu button on the iPhone 5 is smaller and closer to the bottom edge than the predecessor to lend more room for the display. The iPhone’s camera lens hole is also smaller closer to the middle, maybe to make video chats more centered in some kind of Steve-Jobs-Zen sort of way.

As for the new technology that makes the sleek screen possible, ETrade Supply analysts said the iPhone 5 uses a new generation of IGZO oxide semiconductors from Sharp. The touch surface of the iPhone 4S is a layer of glass covered with a conductive material that allows the phone’s circuitry to detect electrical changes to a digital grid. When touched, contact points on the grid generate electrical impulses that are relayed to the iPhone’s processor. This allows the phone to determine the location and movement on the surface, even for multi-point touch. The metallic material detects electrons discharged from your finger. In the new iPhone 5, the new LCD technology allows the metallic layer to be applied directly on it rather than needing a separate piece of glass.

The new LCD technology also improves the light transmittal of pixels, rendering brightness with an added benefit of lower battery drain. So, the visual impact of the new phone is taller, sleeker and brighter. The resolution measurements for the new iPhone 5 are much higher than the current version.

ETrade Supply performed an analysis on the iPhone 5 case, taking it apart and measuring it to quantify precise differences with current iPhone 4S and speculate about the intent of the changes. According to ETrade:

“First of all, on the display screen, we can see that the iPhone 5 glass lens is 90mm long, while iPhone 4S is 77mm. Both display screens are 52mm wide. The display area enlarges from 3.6 inches to 4.1 inches. The LCD screen is a little smaller than the phone because of overlap of the encasement, so it is around 4 inches compared with the iPhone 4S at 3.5 inches. What’s important, the resolution ratio of iPhone 5 glass lens is around 16:9, which will be a big change for iPhone.”

The iPhone 5 has software enhancements that may make the user experience even more compelling. The iOS 6 makes the phone into a Mac-in-your-hand with more processing power and memory than previous versions. Much has been written about the forthcoming 3-D maps that could leave Google Maps in the dust and score points for Apple in the simmering rivalry. And, the new iPhone may be a platform for social media devleopers who are intent on digging through data to classify your preferences, predict behaviors and fine-tune targeted marketing messages.

And, last, but not least, Siri is anticipated to be far more conversational in a contextual sort of way. She may be able to learn your preferences and quirks to better respond to inquiries. Though a servant that talks back may not be universally appealing, one that has some clever retorts would amuse anyone.

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Apple does not a have a Ford mentality. It has “lets not produce crap products like everyone else and product a few awe inspiring products” mentality. Putting out the 3,3gs, 4, 4gs was a finance tactic to pay for innovation. Its the small price we pay as consumers to have a product alternative like HP or Dell. Now no more stupid comments

Actually, of course, ETrade Supply has literally no idea what the ‘iPhone 5′ case even looks like, or indeed that the device will be called an iPhone 5.

The supposed leaked models do look nice, but it all remains to be seen, and ETrade Supply has no track record on any of this. Just wanted to point this out in case they actually thought ETrade Supply was some kind of reputable Apple rumor site or something.

“forthcoming 3-D maps that could leave Google Maps in the dust” How would that be since Google is days away from releasing their 3D map app. Even if that is vaporware do you really think, oh wait, this is a pathetic Apple Fan girl article so you’re not thinking. Apple is catching up nicely to Google with the IPHone5. May even surpass them in certain areas with the 5 but then like every other release, the IPhone will quickly be swallowed up by the dozens of Android choices with similar if not better feature sets and yeah, they will actually allow you to make your phone what you want it to be, not what Apple want’s your phone to be. Apple makes good products. And now they have a screen on a phone that I would almost downsize to but not quite. And it will be another 6 months to a year before they innovate again while Google and their hardware partners do so in cycles of weeks if not days. Nice try Susan.

Check out the latest global mobile profit figures for the truth about just how “swallowed up” Apple has been by the tidal wave of mediocrity that is Android. Hint: iOS pulls down the overwhelming majority of profit on the planet.